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Almost as far back as I can remember, Thanksgiving has meant a large gathering of family from my Dad’s side. And when I say “large” I’m not kidding: Now, with four generations of Clements folk, we’re talking 50 or more descendants of my Dad and his two brothers. Yes, we require at least two large turkeys.
This week my wife, Julie, will be attending her fifth Clements Thanksgiving. She’s still a distinct newbie: You don’t earn “regular” status...

Nancy Bishop Langert was the youngest of the three Bishop sisters. On April 7, 1990, she and her husband, Richard, were shot to death in the basement of their suburban Chicago home. Nancy was three months pregnant with their first child. A 16-year-old neighbor was convicted of their murders and sentenced to two consecutive life terms–he was ineligible for the death penalty because he was not 18 at the time of the murders. The troubled young man, David Biro, has never admitted guilt in the killings, even though the .357 Magnum used to...

From birth to age 18, when he mercilessly killed an elderly man he knew, Renaldo Hudson’s life story was a nightmare. The nightmare continued in prison and then on Death Row, to which Hudson, who is black, was sent after he was convicted of killing Folke Petersen, a white man.
But after a decade of being a tough guy in prison (a gang enforcer), Hudson’s story took a dramatic turn. Basically he found God, first in the form of Islam and later Christianity. And the change in Hudson was drastic. He learned to read and write, gave up...

I grew up feasting on stories, pretty much every kind of story–but the ones that always moved me most were the stories about people’s lives. I was a quiet and inward-turned kid (born in 1962), and I loved hanging around my Mom and Dad and their friends–a group of smart and funny and engaged people–and soaking in their conversations. My Dad, an investigative newspaper reporter, was a particularly robust listener and talker, always focused in on real stories.
Listening to and telling people’s stories is what...

Bill Clements

From as far back as he can remember, Bill has been listening to and telling stories. He loves talking with people, hearing about their lives and then making something memorable with what results. He’s spent 30 years in Chicago and the Twin Cities as a journalist writing stories for publications including Chicago magazine, the Chicago Tribune Sunday Magazine and Finance and Commerce. A graduate of Columbia University, Bill has long loved taking still photos. About 10 years ago (on the side, at first), Bill grew fascinated with the possibilities of storytelling through video-making. He is thrilled to be combining his longtime love of people and words and stories with his newer passion for capturing it all on video. Plus, for better or worse, Bill is a staunch, lifelong Cubs fan.